Comments by "Wojtek The Bear" (@wojtekthebear4958) on "Trent Affair- What If The South Won British Support?" video.

Tom Sanders Wanting freedom? The south was the side that supported slavery, literally the opposite of freedom.... Besides, there proper diplomatic channels if a state wants to leave the union. Well at least there could be. Just pass an amendment to change the constitution. "But a state can't pass an amendment by itself," you say. Good thing it was the entire south that wanted to secede and not a single state. They also had support from states like Maryland, Kentucky, etc. Furthermore, you're acting like it was the northern states that forced their will on the southern states that wanted to secede when in reality the northern states were looking for a diplomatic solution to the issue even after the secession. The South grew impatient though as the Union soldiers weren't leaving the forts in the south that they occupied though, so they started the war by launching an attack on Forth Sumter, a Union fort in Charleston. So the South started the war, not the North. Please though, continue spewing "facts" about your false narrative. Oh, and Irish Americans funded terrorism. They no longer are allowed to as the IRA is considered a terrorist organization, meaning they would get arrested today for doing so. It only happened during the time of the Civil War. Similarly Britain was helping the South by building ships for them like the CSS Alabama, which was built in secret (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CSS_Alabama). So don't act like Britain has the moral high ground. They gave support to the faction that was trying to defend slavery. France also did this by building the CSS Stonewall for the South (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/France_and_the_American_Civil_War).
4
Yeah, I'm sure the Southern slaves were rooting for a Southern victory.
3
Someone has issues to work out....
1
Tom Sanders Your argument doesn't help your case. The ships built by the British and French were private ventures...okay? So what? You know what was also a private venture? Irish Americans supporting revolutionary movements in Ireland. You can't get all pissy about one without the other. That was my sole point. Your comment about rifles has nothing to do with anything either so I'll just skip it. Because no amendment was proposed? Like I said, the South never even bothered to try. If you've ever read the US constitution then you'd know that there are two paths to create an amendment, so don't act like what I'm talking about is impossible. In fact, slavery is illegal because of the 13th amendment, passed during the Civil War. Because the United States still considered it to be their territory? Obviously the United States couldn't move all its troops out within a single day and, as I said before, negotiations were going on to try and settle the secession issue, so the US didn't want to give up any political ground, especially if that meant giving up military supplies to the South. You don't think they would have been able to take all their military equipment with them after all, do you? What do you know, a private venture that supposedly supports the IRA, even though they themselves don't claim to. While I don't care if they do or don't as that's not the point, I have to ask what this has to do with the USA. The USA has condemned them and our government has called them a front for the IRA. Beyond that there's very little the US can do. You really seem to hold a double standard when it comes to private ventures. It's okay for the British to have private ventures to subvert other governments, but it's wrong for the Americans? How about you just say its wrong for both sides and stop acting like you have some moral high ground.
1
Tom Sanders The North was open to options. I guess you completely ignored the part that the North didn't start the war, the South did. South Carolina seceded on December 20th, 1860 (http://www.ushistory.org/us/32e.asp), Fort Sumter didn't happen until April 12th, 1861 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Sumter). That gave the Union four months to raise an army to take back the South, which, as my first source shows, was much weaker before For Sumter as Virginia, Arkansas, Tennessee, and North Carolina had yet to secede. Keep in mind that the first major battle of the war, the First Battle of Bull Run, happened in July that same year, three months after the battle of Fort Sumter, so the North could've invaded the South before Fort Sumter and yet they didn't. I wonder why. Oh, because they were negotiating with the seceding states to keep them within the union. In other words, they were open to options. Sumter was also not an excuse for war and its deplorable that you'd even say such a thing. Are you saying we shouldn't treat people firing on our troops and taking them prisoner as an act of war, because 99.99% of countries would. With that logic the British were just using the battle of Lexington and Concord as an excuse for war with the Thirteen Colonies. I mean, who cares if we were firing on our troops? We were just having some good fun, right? Or, you know, they didn't like their troops being fired upon by troops from a nation they didn't recognize....like Britain. They also didn't want to subvert the freedoms of the people within the states. You seem to forget, once again, that a majority of the people in the slave states couldn't vote. For instance, at the time only 1 in 5 people in South Carolina were white. Of those half were women and hadn't yet received the right to vote. Want don't they get a say in the affairs of the state before they are forced to go to war for a cause they didn't even get a say in? I never said anything about arms. You're the one that brought up arms. They also have nothing to do with my anything we've discussed. You mentioned Americans supporting the IRA and how our government was horrible for it. I argued that the British didn't have the moral high ground on the issue as they built boats for the Confederacy. Whether the British supplied both sides with rifles does not matter and I don't care. ....This still has nothing to do with anything. Stick to the actual argument.
1
Tom Sanders I know what I said and I still fail to see what the Union buying arms has to do with anything. Your argument was that the US was horrible for not fighting against private actors in their vendetta against a British Ireland. I countered that by showing that Britain did that same when private actors built ships for the South during the Civil War. Nowhere in this does your statement about Britain selling weapons to both sides matter. It's irrelevant to our discussion. The British government never even recognized the Confederacy themselves, so I fail to see your point. You know what the months was also plenty of time for? A diplomatic solution to the secession. Do you know what the South did instead? Fired on an American fort, built by the USA, garrisoned by American troops. Even if you wanted to make the argument that the Americans should've left, the Confederacy was duty bound to at least compensate them for the loss of their military equipment in the South. After all, these forts and such were paid for by the United States government and therefore did not belong to the Confederacy. You think I'm just stretching for an argument? Before the border between Canada and the US was clearly defined and mapped out, the United States built a fort on what they would later to find was Canadian territory just above the American border. So what did Britain do? They gave the US the strip of territory the fort belonged to (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Montgomery_(Lake_Champlain)).
1
Tom Sanders You pointing out that the US bought guns from Britain has nothing to do with the argument though. That's like me saying that Britain purchased weapons from the US during WW2. So? Who cares? It's not relevant. You made the assumption that Britain had some sort of moral high ground because the US didn't prevent its citizens from helping the IRA, even though similarly Britain didn't prevent its citizens from helping the South. That's it. The US government purchasing arms from the British government is not related in any way, especially since Britain also purchased arms from the US in their battle against the IRA. I also am fully aware what time periods we are talking about. And what seems clear to you would be, in fact, wrong. The South did not in any way choose to abolish the US government. They don't even have the power to. They declared that they were no longer part of the union. That's like saying India wanted to completely destroy the British government when all they really wanted was independence from them. No, many of the state legislatures voted on secession themselves, with only one of two states that left the Union actually having a referendum of their citizens on the issue.
1
David Solis Ironically I'm majoring in economics not history. If you want a topic that will really grind my gears, talk about getting rid of the Federal Reserve or how we're heading towards an economic apocalypse.
1
David Solis We were never significantly tied to the Rothchild's to begin with. While I didn't directly say that, that's kind of where I was heading. Otherwise there are more important time periods in history in terms of economics than the Civil War and Lincoln's policies. The industrial revolution and Great Depression would probably be the first and second, with WW1 coming in third.
1
David Solis Sure Lincoln took us off the gold standard....during the Civil War. After the war we went right back on it. We didn't actually leave the gold standard permanently until the 1930's during the Great Depression or the 70's under Nixon depending on who you ask. Similarly the Civil War brought the first ever income tax to the United States, but it would expire soon after the war, so it still wasn't exactly a revolutionary concept. We also already had greenbacks before WW2. That's what the gold standard is after all. Paper currency that gets its value from the price of gold. It also wouldn't be the USD we use today since the Fed, which orders the money to be printed, wasn't created until 1913. We were developing our economy independent of European banks already. That's why we had institutions like the first and second national bank of the United States. Finally, none of this really challenged the prescribed economic theory at the time. That's why, while important for other things, Lincoln's economic policies weren't all that revolutionary. It wasn't until the interwar period between WW1 and WW2 that a lot of dogmas would be challenged by Keynesianism, and later Keynesianism itself challenged.
1
David Solis The same can be said for most every war the US has fought though, so it's nothing unusual.
1